Policy Brief: International Migration: Charting a Course through the Crisis

The economic downturn affecting the global economy since mid-2008 has turned into a jobs crisis. As a result, following many years of continuous increase, labour migration to the OECD has started to decline. The unfolding economic crisis is also threatening recent improvements, observed in many countries, in the labour market outcomes of immigrants.

Against this backdrop, there is a perception among some that immigrants are competing for scarce jobs on OECD labour markets. This perception underlies the calls for tightening controls on inflows and for encouraging unemployed immigrants to return home.

Policy responses with respect to labour migration in OECD countries have to strike a balance between different objectives, including: adapting labour inflows to changing labour demand; recognising that not all short-term needs for international recruitment will vanish with the economic slowdown; keeping longer-term objectives in mind during the crisis in order to be ready to benefit from migrants’ skills when the economy recovers; and avoiding a backlash against migration in public opinion. At the same time, some revamping of labour migration systems may be necessary to respond more efficiently to future labour market needs, which are likely to reassert themselves with population ageing, and to avoid some of the integration problems that OECD countries have encountered in the past.

This Policy Brief presents some of the main findings of the 2009 International Migration Outlook on the impact of the economic downturn on migration flows and policies, and on labour-market integration of immigrants. It highlights how migration and integration policies should be adjusted through the crisis and beyond.